"The queer and kink communities of SOMA have faced so many challenges over the last 70 years, and yet we have refused to let go of this little corner of the world," said Rachel Ryan, a member of the Stud collective who was part of the yearslong effort to obtain the designation.

NCSF is proud to announce that the 2018 Race Bannon Advocacy Award will be presented to Race Bannon on Friday August 10th.

NCSF is honoring Race with our award in recognition of his support for research, community development and advocacy, and for a lifetime of tireless work and enduring contributions to the alternative sexuality communities. NCSF has named our advocacy award after Race, and will present the Race Bannon Advocacy Award to a professional every year whose work has made a significant impact on our communities and our fight against discrimination.

The pop-up award ceremony will be held at 575 Castro Street at 6:30 pm, the former site of Harvey Milk’s camera shop in San Francisco, as a way to remember the activists whose footsteps we follow.

Race Bannon has been an organizer, writer, educator, speaker and activist in the LGBT, leather/kink, polyamory and HIV/STI prevention realms since 1973. He’s authored two books, been published extensively, spoken to hundreds of audiences, created Kink Aware Professionals (KAP) the world's largest kink-friendly psychotherapist and medical referral service, was a leader of The DSM Project that led to a beneficial change in the way psychotherapy views BDSM, founded a groundbreaking alternative sexuality publishing company, been an internet radio sex talk show host, received national and local awards, appeared in numerous documentaries, and currently also writes for the Bay Area Reporter. His blog is www.bannon.com.

]]>Tue, 07 Aug 2018 19:11:09 +0000What is Ethical Non-Monogamy and Could It Work For Your Marriage?https://www.ncsfreedom.org/press/blog/item/what-is-ethical-non-monogamy-and-could-it-work-for-your-marriage
https://www.ncsfreedom.org/press/blog/item/what-is-ethical-non-monogamy-and-could-it-work-for-your-marriage

Brides.com

Cheating is betrayal. It is unethical and wrong. An open relationship is not cheating. Let's say it together: An open relationship does not constitute cheating. When a relationship is open, in whatever form that takes for the couple in question, everyone involved knows what is going on. And everyone is happy with the setup. The honesty is the key.

"Japanese bondage actually started with police officers having to tie up the people they were arresting," he says. "Centuries ago, Japanese police had to use ropes in order to transport criminals, and officers had to learn complicated knots to constrain their detainees. Those same officers then took their knowledge to the bedroom."

“Fetish is heavily tied to having a psychological need for those specific objects or acts in order to experience pleasure and or orgasm, whereas kinks can add to a sexual experience but aren’t necessarily needed to achieve sexual release,” said a sex educator who goes by the moniker “Dirty Lola.”

Being with another person can mean lots of different things, obviously, so make sure you and your partner cover what is and isn't OK. For example, maybe it's OK for you to sleep with the other person but not to date them romantically, or maybe certain sexual acts are reserved for your partner. Rader suggests asking yourselves: "Do you want to only have threesomes? Do you want to only sleep with other people when your partner is out of town? How often can this happen? Do you tell your partner all the details?" You also might want to discuss boundaries around how frequently you can see the other person.

“Why is it that we hold up this couple-type of approach that doesn’t really reflect or meet the needs of many, many Canadians,” asks Nick Mulé, associate professor at the School of Social Work at York University. “We know there are all kinds of relationships, such as (mixed orientation) and polyamorous relationships. Statistics Canada speaks to, you know, the fact that the fastest growing type of household is the single person.”

“Both are about communication, honesty, trust, love,” Sharon said. “It ideally should be the same exact thing, it’s just polyamory is with more than one person.” Isaac agreed, adding, “If you can’t be in a monogamous relationship, you can’t be in a polyamorous one.”

“My buddies and I started to bounce it around saying: ‘Hey that’d be kind of cool to stick your girlfriend to a Velcro wall and have sex,’ we all laughed, ‘you could stick her upside down.’ The idea became a rolling inside joke. After about six months, there was so much interest in this thing that I thought, ‘this is an idea worth pursuing.’ Some sort of a Velcro thing that you could stick your partner to. So we started bringing our girlfriends in on the joke and most of them said they wouldn’t mind doing that as long as they could get away. And that really stuck with me — from there I bought a sewing machine and taught myself how to sew. Then my brother, who has his own sound recording studio, and I developed the Velcro bed sheets, handcuffs and anchor pads accessories.”

Women like Daniels and the two other dancers arrested at Sirens that night wind up with their mugshots and names in the paper, while club owners and customers generally skate by with a slap on the wrist or a ticket — that is, until a city attempts to finally eradicate clubs, usually when they're standing in the way of gentrification. It's a double standard that unfairly punishes working women while leaving those who purchase and profit from their work unscathed.